Rapid Tissue Necrosis (RTN)

[travis_]

I had one of my blue tort corals shed its tissue over a short period of time. I had 2 frags in different tanks and they doth died. I feel this is RTN. What can I do? What should I test for? My Nitrates/ites and NH are always undetectable. Calcium around 400 ppm. Alkalinity at 11, salinity 1.025 and pH at 8.3. I do not test for anything else. I am thinking about buying a Magnesium and Phosphorus test kit, but they are expen$ive. I just got a refractometer and found that previous I was a little high on my salinity but slowly brought it down to 1.025-1.024.

Help is appreciated,

 

[preons]

sorry to hear that man. I dont know to much about RTN but the only time it happened to me it was temperature related.

magnesium test may not be too valuable for you unless you are dosing magnesium. it should be at the normal value your salt contains given you do water changes every month or so.

Also Ive had my magnesium as low as 9 and has high as 22 when i was dosing for bryopsis control, with no problems with RTN even on sensitive corals.

good luck

 

[travis_]

what happened with your temp that casued this? I normally keep my tank from 76-79 F.

sorry to hear that man. I dont know to much about RTN but the only time it happened to me it was temperature related.

magnesium test may not be too valuable for you unless you are dosing magnesium. it should be at the normal value your salt contains given you do water changes every month or so.

Also Ive had my magnesium as low as 9 and has high as 22 when i was dosing for bryopsis control, with no problems with RTN even on sensitive corals.

good luck

 

[preons]

My chiller malfunctioned and when I got home from work the temp was 85-90 degrees.

most of my sps exibited some stn and a few had rtn'd. The stn'd ones all recovered although very slowly and were brown for a long time.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I had one of my blue tort corals shed its tissue over a short period of time. I had 2 frags in different tanks and they doth died. I feel this is RTN. What can I do? What should I test for? My Nitrates/ites and NH are always undetectable. Calcium around 400 ppm. Alkalinity at 11, salinity 1.025 and pH at 8.3. I do not test for anything else. I am thinking about buying a Magnesium and Phosphorus test kit, but they are expen$ive. I just got a refractometer and found that previous I was a little high on my salinity but slowly brought it down to 1.025-1.024.

Help is appreciated,

Age and wattage of bulbs?
LPS or softy neighbors?
Recent spikes in alk due to reactor?
AEFW?

 

[returnofsid]

Magnesium can actually play a critical role in Alk and Ca. Extremely low or high Mg can cause RTN.

 

[preons]

Magnesium can actually play a critical role in Alk and Ca. Extremely low or high Mg can cause RTN.

do you agree with me though that its highly unlikely his Mg is high if he isnt dosing it? And its probably not too low if his alk and calcium are numbers are fine and he has done some water changes this year?

Id would be willing to bet that his tank just isnt set up very well (good lighting, maintenance, random current, immature tank, unfavorable LR, flatworms, redbug...) and there are a number of factors causing his corals to be stressed and rtn to develop from some final trigger like a sting from a bad neighbor or something. :?:

maybe your new refractometer is off and you are running with low salinaty?

 

[returnofsid]

It is unlikely, but without any testing, it's impossible to say what the problem might be.
Since the original post mentioned not testing for Mg, and Mg is known to cause STN and RTN issues, I thought it appropriate to mention.

 

[jezzeaepi]

do you agree with me though that its highly unlikely his Mg is high if he isnt dosing it? And its probably not too low if his alk and calcium are numbers are fine and he has done some water changes this year?

Depends entirely on the salt. Expensive salts should be ok,(Tunze, Reefcrystals) but if he is using instant ocean I can Garuntee that its low if he hasn't been dosing. IO runs like 950-1000mag, and after your tank uses some up, youll probably be closer to 900 after a few months.

 

[Ed Hahn]

so many things cause RTN.

How about sudden change in lighting. Change in flow (too much direct flow), slime from another coral (contamination) or could be from you or previous owner touching one coral and then going to another without cleaning hands. Those are a few I see quite a bit.

 

[sandswhitson]

I agree with returnofsid. Buy a Magnesium kit. My calcium and alk numbers were fine and I hadn't been testing for magnesium. When I did test the Mag it was around 900. Oh yeah and I do frequent water changes as well. That would be where I would start.

 

[ReefferMan]

Alk seems high to me for having 400PPM of CA. So MG should be @ 1200ppm... Am i rite in saying that would be correct?

I do suspect theres another problem with this system. Wheres your nitrate's at? Give us a run down on the system.... Age Equipt ect....

 

[jezzeaepi]

Alk seems high to me for having 400PPM of CA. So MG should be @ 1200ppm... Am i rite in saying that would be correct?

The only way you can tell your mag is to test it. You cant assume its 1200 just because your calcium is 400.

 

[travis_]

Age and wattage of bulbs?
LPS or softy neighbors?
Recent spikes in alk due to reactor?
AEFW?

I had one frag under an older 400W MH (~10k) and the other under a new, 400W 14,000k bulb and they both shed their flesh overnight. THe system is all tied together. I have a combination of LPS, softy and SPS neighbors. I did supect my lobo brains at once point, but I had none of these in one of the tanks. the reason why I suspected them is becasue I had anotehr SPS fall over onto the the brain and it did the same thing and died quickly. I do not use a reactor and at the time of this incident I used an additive to keep my Alk around 10. I since when to kalk drip and it has dropped to 8.

AEFW? I use RO and have an ATO system to maintain salinity. I was actually a little high at the time of this inccident (1.027) but since lowered it now that I have a refractometer.

 

[travis_]

I agree with returnofsid. Buy a Magnesium kit. My calcium and alk numbers were fine and I hadn't been testing for magnesium. When I did test the Mag it was around 900. Oh yeah and I do frequent water changes as well. That would be where I would start.

Man! These kits are very expensive! But I will bite the bullet and order one next time I place an online order.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I had one frag under an older 400W MH (~10k) and the other under a new, 400W 14,000k bulb and they both shed their flesh overnight. The system is all tied together. I have a combination of LPS, softy and SPS neighbors. I did supect my lobo brains at once point, but I had none of these in one of the tanks. the reason why I suspected them is becasue I had anotehr SPS fall over onto the the brain and it did the same thing and died quickly. I do not use a reactor and at the time of this incident I used an additive to keep my Alk around 10. I since when to kalk drip and it has dropped to 8.

AEFW? I use RO and have an ATO system to maintain salinity. I was actually a little high at the time of this inccident (1.027) but since lowered it now that I have a refractometer.

AEFW = Acro Eating Flat Worms, probably not the problem. I would bet either contaminants as in air based solvent toxins or something got in the tank. That if it wasn't a dosing error. Alk spikes can start a catastrophic RTN episode that can be hard to reverse.

 

[returnofsid]

An Alk spike is exactly what caused RTN for me awhile back.

 

[travis_]

An Alk spike is exactly what caused RTN for me awhile back.

it is possible that I spiked before setting up my kalk drip. I would dump in a buch of the ALK increasing additive from time to time without any great attention to how much, now I need another blue tort frag to test to see if it is still a problem. Is there anyone in Bellingham that would be willing to sell/trade/give me a tiny tort frag to try?

thanks,

 

[returnofsid]

Dosing, or as you put it, "dumping" additives without accurate and regular testing could have had any number of outcomes....none are usually good. Hope you are able to get everything balanced and back in order soon.

 

[travis_]

Dosing, or as you put it, "dumping" additives without accurate and regular testing could have had any number of outcomes....none are usually good. Hope you are able to get everything balanced and back in order soon.

Yes, now that I have the kalk drip I am already seeing an improvement on all my corals and even recovery of one that I thought was dead. Kalk drip all the way!